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Day to Remember, Night to Forget (Except Pelfrey)

The opener of their day-night doubleheader Saturday reminded the Mets how simple and enjoyable baseball can be: see the ball, hit the ball. They thrashed the Cincinnati Reds, 12-6, scoring 12 runs for the second straight game, as Carlos Beltrán and Carlos Delgado were front and center in offsetting a merely good outing by their ace, Johan Santana.

The nightcap reminded the Mets how complex and exasperating the game can be: see the ball, do not hit the ball, do not field it either. They lost, 7-1, as Bronson Arroyo flummoxed a different lineup through eight innings, allowing four hits, and a shaky bullpen and sloppy fielding undermined an encouraging performance by Mike Pelfrey, who yielded two runs in six innings.

So, the overall result at Shea Stadium, a split, left the Mets (18-16) no better in the standings than when the day began — worse, in fact, three games behind first-place Florida, still in third place — and, not surprisingly, produced divergent opinions in the clubhouse.

Said David Wright, who, with Delgado, committed errors on consecutive ninth-inning grounders that led to three unearned runs against Billy Wagner in the second game: “To be the team we want to be and need to be, we have to be better than that.”

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Mike Pelfrey allowed two runs in six innings but left the second game with the Mets trailing, 2-1. The bullpen allowed five runs.Credit
Uli Seit for The New York Times

Said Wagner, who entered that game with the Mets trailing by 4-1 and was replaced by Jorge Sosa with that deficit doubled: “Pelfrey pitched great and our bullpen, we just stunk.”

Of the three, that evaluation was the closest to reality, a blunt assessment that nonetheless did not sufficiently address Pelfrey, who had pitched poorly in his last three starts — all Mets losses — but revealed greater poise, a sharper slider and improved command in walking only one. Veering from his standard approach, Pelfrey threw fewer sinkers and more four-seam fastballs in an effort to get ahead of hitters, and he retired 10 of 11 during one stretch. Randolph gushed, saying it was Pelfrey’s best outing of the season — better, even, than the seven shutout innings he pitched against Washington on April 15, his last victory.

“I thought I was aggressive, which was a huge sign for me,” Pelfrey said.

It would not be far-fetched to say that Pelfrey pitched better than Santana, who, battling allergies that produced a runny nose and watery eyes, tied a career-high by giving up 10 hits while allowing three runs. Santana nearly did not make it through the sixth in the first game, but he struck out Corey Patterson, representing the tying run, with two on to end the inning.

“I got a lot of confidence in things that I can do,” Santana said. “There’s going to be times when you struggle, but you have to know what you’re capable of doing. I had a feeling I could get that guy out.”

Before taking the field in the opener, the Mets had not played in nearly 72 hours. For the worrywarts out there — you know who you are — that was enough time to fret that the extended break would sap any offensive continuity from Wednesday’s 12-run outburst in Los Angeles. But there was enough juice in the offense to last another game, although Beltrán and Delgado, whose ineffectiveness with runners in scoring position has killed many a rally this season, may be on the verge of something more.

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David Wright advancing to second on Carlos Beltráns sacrifice fly, which drove in Luis Castillo in the fifth inning of the first game.Credit
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Beltrán went 3 for 6 with six runs batted in Saturday, raising his average to .233 from .218. In the opener he drove in five runs, three on a bases-loaded triple that capped the Mets’ four-run sixth. Delgado, who batted seventh in the lineup for the first time since Sept. 30, 1995, added four hits, and in the victory blasted a bases-empty homer in the seventh that preceded one by Brian Schneider. That home run was Schneider’s first extra-base hit in 69 at-bats.

“That’s what I was hitting?” Delgado said. “I forgot out there, the first inning. I think so. I’ll take 3 for 4 any day.”

With everyone healthy, the lineup that Randolph employed in the opener was the Mets’ most dangerous: Luis Castillo hitting second, Ryan Church fifth, Moises Alou sixth and Delgado seventh. It added a run-producing presence in the bottom third of the lineup while breaking up a string of left-handed hitters toward the middle and keeping Castillo, a smart hitter who does not strike out often, at the top.

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Since the season-opening trip, when he had at least two hits in three of the first four games, Beltrán has notched multihit games only twice. He says he can gauge how he is hitting based on how his legs feel, and they have felt heavier recently, he said, affecting his weight transfer. His timing has suffered, too, as he has gotten out front of breaking pitches and swung late on fastballs.

Randolph, though, said he had noticed Beltrán’s hands moving quickly through the strike zone during batting practice, and he said he sensed that Beltrán was on the verge of breaking through. Then he brought up Beltrán’s aggressiveness. Of the Mets’ regulars, Beltrán is one of the least likely to swing at the first pitch — 23 percent of the time, according to Stats, L.L.C. — but when he came up in the sixth with two outs, he ripped Mike Lincoln’s cutter down the first-base line, clearing the bases.

“Maybe two weeks ago, I would have pulled it foul,” Beltrán said. “It was always a good feeling to keep my hands inside and shoot that ball down the line. When you’re not doing good, you have to do one thing good, and as an outfielder, I feel like I’ve done my job. Now when things are changed offensively, it’s more fun.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP3 of the New York edition with the headline: Day to Remember, Night to Forget (Except Pelfrey). Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe